The prime minister had hoped her announcement would pacify Tory rebels as they debated the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Instead, the pledge “sparked a mutiny” as at least six other ministers fought for more funding, according to the Times newspaper.

May had hoped to claim that most of the £20 billion injection by 2023 would come through Brexit, not more tax.

“As a country we will be contributing more, a bit more, but also we will have that sum of money that is available from the European Union,” she said on Sunday.

But on Monday the health secretary Jeremy Hunt was in headlong retreat as he faced questions from MPs about where the money would come from.

“We are clear that there will be an increased burden of taxation,” he admitted.

Yet the Tories are refusing to say in detail how they’ll fund the increase until the Budget this autumn.

Pressure

There is also pressure on the Labour leadership to say it will raise taxes for ordinary people, not just corporations and the rich. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he would roll back some, but not all, of the Tories’ corporation tax cuts to top up NHS funding.

Labour’s manifesto promised to raise corporation tax from 19 percent to 26 percent by 2020—a move that could generate an extra £19 billion a year. But at 26 percent, Corbyn’s corporation tax rate would still be lower than it was under New Labour governments.

There is no need to raise taxes on working class people. Last month’s Sunday Times Rich List showed the 1,000 richest people and families saw their wealth increase by 10 percent in a year—to a record £724 billion.

It names Tory party donor Mike Platt as Britain’s richest hedge fund manager with a fortune of £3 billion. Seizing the wealth of this socially useless banker alone could fund 42,000 nurses’ salaries for a year.